My Old Order Amish friend, Naomi, (not her real name) is in much demand as a midwife—often going without sleep for long periods of time. She tells me that she is grateful for a husband who has always encouraged her in her ministry.

The use of that term is important. She and her husband do not refer to what she does as her “work” or her “job.” It is always her “ministry.” I heard such respect for her in his voice when he estimated how many babies she had delivered. “Over five hundred,” he said. Then he turned to her for affirmation. “Is that about right?” She quietly amended that she had delivered well over that number.

She is tired from helping a mother through a long labor the night before, and her legs ache. She has her feet up on a stool when she asks her husband if he will make her some mint tea. Mint tea is a favorite among the Amish, and most have a small harvest of mint from the plants they grow each summer.

Making tea at their house is a bit more complicated than popping a cup of water and a tea bag into a microwave. Water has to first be heated to boiling on a wood stove, then poured over loose mint leaves and finally strained into a clean cup. Her husband cheerfully brings each of us a mug of it.

It was nearly ten o’clock. My husband picked up the telephone, checked the caller ID and said, “It’s Naomi,” (not her real name.)

I’m not a big telephone talker, but there was a smile on my face as I reached for the telephone. Naomi has become one of my favorite people.

“Are you busy?” she asked in her soft, lyrical Pennsylvania Dutch accent.

Of course I was busy. I’m always busy. But never too busy to talk with a good friend, especially one who has taken the time to walk out to an unheated phone shanty in the middle of January!

I got caught up on her daughter’s troubled pregnancy and how the other Amish were bringing in food and helping with housework so the daughter could be on complete bed rest. Naomi described the pregnancy problem in some detail. She’s a midwife with forty years of experience and has dealt with troubled pregnancies before.

As we got caught up on each others lives, I marveled at the miles, (she lives in a different state) different customs and vastly different lives that lay between us–and yet how easily we have connected–even on the first day I met her. We discussed in some depth a friend of hers I had met who has two special needs children, and a less than ideal husband. I found out how Naomi’s twin grandbabies are doing. (they’re crawling now and such a handful!)

I am being told by those who know about these things, that my second historical is not strictly a sequel, nor is it a series. I’m new at this, and did not know the distinction. So here’s a little more information about the not-a-sequel, not-a-series book I just finished writing:-)

It is set in 1871 Michigan, the year of a terrible drought. My hero is a widowed dirt farmer with five children. My heroine is an immigrant girl from Sweden by the name of Ingrid. It is a story of survival and enduring love.

The sequel part comes in when the farmer is forced to seek work in one of the lumber camps and ends up in Robert Foster’s. The reader gets to see how Katie and Robert are doing, but the book isn’t ABOUT Katie and Robert. So–this is not technically a sequel. And it is not a series because each book is a stand-alone novel. Now that that’s all clear, I think I’ll go read the dictionary so I won’t make that sort of mistake again:-)